Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
On 26 March 2012 the video game retailer Game Group announced that it had gone into administration, wtih the loss of 2,104 jobs in the UK and Ireland, as a result of the closure of 277 stores. The remaining 333 stores will stay open until a buyer can be found. The company has suffered from high fixed costs and an ambitious international expansion. Its business has also been hit by competition from online-only retailers.
Game Group employs 385 staff at its headquarters in Basingstoke in Hampshire, UK, and about 5,100 in its stores in the UK and Ireland. About another 5,000 staff are employed at Game's other stores, which are located in France, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Scandinavia and Australia.
Eurofound (2012), Game, Bankruptcy in European Union, factsheet number 73378, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/73378.